Video: introduction

- Welcome to Using Perl/CGI Scripts. I'm Bill Weinman. The purpose of this course is to teach you how to use Perl/CGI Scripts. How to install them on your web server, how to make little customizations to them, how to change the variables that you will sometimes need to change in order to be able to get them to work. Just to get you a good understanding, a good feel for how they work and what you will need to do sometimes to get them installed and running on your website.

Installing a Perl/CGI script doesn't have to be difficult, and making small modifications shouldn't take a rocket scientist. Designed for the web professional, Using Perl/CGI Scripts explains in simple step-by-step instructions how a CGI script works. You will acquire the skills you need to edit and install a Perl script on your server, and even make simple modifications without having to hire an expensive programmer! Complete with working examples of counters, contact forms, and even a web blog, Using Perl/CGI Scripts will guide you through the process of customizing and installing these scripts on your own web site.

introduction

- Welcome to Using Perl/CGI Scripts.I'm Bill Weinman.The purpose of this course is to teach youhow to use Perl/CGI Scripts.How to install them on your web server,how to make little customizations to them,how to change the variables that you willsometimes need to change in order tobe able to get them to work.Just to get you a good understanding,a good feel for how they work and what you will needto do sometimes to get them installedand running on your website.

Throughout this course we'll be using someCGI Scripts that I've written for this purpose.Once you're done with this course,you can always visit my website and findupdates to the scripts.I'm planning to put up a little discussion groupwhere the students can interact with each otherand give each other advice and tips and things.Mark down this URL here.bw.org/using-perl-cgi.That's where you'll find these things in the future.The first script we'll be looking at in the courseis this test.cgi script.

This is all it really does.It's extremely useful for testing outa web server that you haven't been to beforeor finding out what's wrong with a web server.It's a little test script that runsand echos back the configuration of the serverand the versions of Perl and things.We'll also be using this datetime script,which is shown right here.This is an opportunity for you to learnhow to use the types of CGI scriptsthat are included on a web pageas opposed to run separately.You'll also learn how to change a variableso that you can get the wording of itto be different on your web page.

Also this little counter, which you see down here.It's a little bit suave, it puts commas in the numbers.Again, it's an include style CGI script.The difference here is you'll have to learnhow to install a script that needs to readand write to a file.You'll learn that with that script.Then we'll get on to some of the more interesting scripts.This is a nice, simple blogging scriptthat if you wanna put up a web blog on your website,that's a very popular thing today.A lot of people like to do that.I think I'm gonna start doing that, in fact.

Finally, this is an email contact script.This is the same one that I use on my websitewhen somebody wants to contact me.I don't print my email address anywhere on my website.Instead, I have this nice little form.I already get thousands of pieces of spam a day,I don't need any more, so I just don'tpublish my email address any more.When people wanna contact me, they just come here.They put in their name, they put in their email address.They put in a subject.I'll put something in here.

And a subject, hi.This is a test.And they come down here and press the buttonand it gives them an opportunity to editif they want to, make changes,and then finally go ahead and send the messageand it sends me an email.I will not get an email from me.Those are the scripts that we're gonna be covering here.We're also gonna talk about some other common scriptsthat are out there, some of the pitfallsyou can get into, some of the security issuesthat you might wanna think about.

By the end of this course you should knowhow to go out and find CGI scripts on the internetand install them on your site.You'll also have a little toolkit of some useful scriptsthat you can use from the course here as well.All of these scripts are available,if you got this course with a CD Romor if you got the download files from the website,or you can just grab them from my website thereat that URL bw.org/using-perl-cgi.

Learn by watching, listening, and doing, Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along Premium memberships include access to all exercise files in the library.

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Learn by watching, listening, and doing! Exercise files are the same files the author uses in the course, so you can download them and follow along. Exercise files are available with all Premium memberships.
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